Past Visiting Artists
Visiting Artist - Charlyn Reynolds
Charlyn Reynolds
September 2 - 5, 2025
Charlyn Reynolds is a sculptor and installation artist who continues to use glass in her artwork.
She studied fine art and glassmaking at Illinois State University under the instruction of John
Miller. In 2019, she graduated with an MFA from the University of Texas-Arlington. She has
worked for the Toledo Museum of Art and the Corning Museum of Glass performing live glass
blowing demonstrations on Celebrity Cruise Lines while educating the public about glass as an
artistic medium. She has developed her skills further by taking intensive classes at many craft
schools from world renowned artists such as Kimiake and Shin-ichi Higuchi as well as Martin
Janecky. She was able to expand her glass sculpting skills during the two-month class with
Janecky and later worked for him at his studio in Fairbanks, Alaska.
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Most recently she was a demonstrating artist at the Detroit GAS Conference. Presently, Charlyn lives in Miami, FL, where she is employed by Fine Art Handcrafted Lighting as a Manager of Glass Operations and
Design.
She continues to work with glass and various mixed media to create her artwork.
Her past artist-in-residences includes Gent Glas in Ghent, Belgium, Studio Kura in Fukuoka,
Japan, The Melting Point in Sedona, AZ, and Neusole Glassworks in Cincinnati, OH.
Handblown Girafee Candy Bowl
Handblown Glass Green Dinosaur
Handblown Glass sculpture of Barrio Glassworks Shop Dog Eleanor as a Seal Pup
Handblown Girafee Candy Bowl
Made during the residency
Visitig Artist - Jinya Zhao
Visiting Artist
Jinya Zhao
February 18 -21, 2025
Jinya Zhao is an internationally recognized artist whose work focuses on the interaction of color, layer and sensory connections in blown glass sculpture.
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​Born and raised in China, Jinya received her BA at the China Academy of Art in 2017 and her MA and MRes from the Royal College of Art in 2019 and 2021, respectively. She works as a self-employed artist and as a researcher. Currently, she is pursuing her PhD at the Royal College of Art in London.
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​Jinya sees glass as an ideal medium to explore the themes of environment, emotions, and personal experiences. In her current practice and research, Jinya explores the transformative potential of glass art through a new concept of “synaesthetic touch”, aiming to bridge sensory experiences to evoke a deeper emotional and perceptual engagement with the artwork. By enhancing the visual experience of blown glass sculpture, she aims to enable audiences to experience an enhanced relationship between vision and touch, to reconnect and re-invoke multisensory perceptions. This methodology extends beyond the purely visual, aiming to establish connections with the ethereal and the unreachable.
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​Her work is collected by museums and galleries such as Prague Gallery of Czech Glass, Qingdao Art Museum, Southern Illinois University, Ulster Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum.
Visiting Artist - Jason Christian
Visiting Artist
Jason Christian
Feb 5 - 9, 2024
From the artist:
I still don’t know if I chose glassblowing, or if it chose me. I just knew that the moment I walked into that studio and saw what was being created I had to be a part of it. Finding glassblowing felt magical like I was made for it. It provided something I lacked in my younger years. The urge to create, grow, and express myself through my work. To witness a person, handle molten glass, manipulate it, and form it as if it were water was amazing to me. I knew that I had to be a part of it.
Visiting Artist - Dave Walters
Visiting Artist
Dave Walters
September 19 - 23, 2023
David’s work focuses on the narrative. Referring often to the fairy tales of our youth, he weaves into the stories a more personal interpretation in an allegorical and metaphorical style, while integrating blown form and image toward a common theme. He's worked mostly with themes from fairy tales and children’s stories, primarily for their familiar and often sentimental associations. He incorporates into these cautionary tales a sense of his own history or personal experience in an effort to give them a more contemporary and intimate relevance.
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David's work creates a deeply personal vocabulary within the framework of the narrative through the parallel and stylized world he imagines. The work is a metaphorical reflection of him-self and the world as he interprets it as told through a visual riddle. There are monsters and heroes among us and within us. Some are funny, some are not. We live in a world of distraction, indifference, neglect, and apathy. Sometimes the darkness of things seems unrelenting. We also live in a world of hope, resilience and renewal. The human spirit is capable of so much more than we sometimes dare to imagine.
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The function of art, which most interests David, is its ability to hold up the mirror and be relevant to the era from which it was spawned. This inspires a sense of connectedness to the audience of its generation, as well as a fingerprint for future generations. David wishes to honor the original function of the story telling tradition as a cautionary tool meant to teach, inspire, entertain and maybe even frighten us when necessary.
Trenton Quiocho
Visiting Artist
Trenton Quiocho
October 24 -27, 2023
Artist Bio
Trenton Quiocho is a Tacoma-based artist dedicated to the craft of glass and youth development through art. He began his explorations in glass as a student in Tacoma and has continued with the material for over a decade. He has worked as a glassblower and hot shop technician with local organizations including Chihuly Boathouse, Glassybaby, Hilltop Artists and the Museum of Glass. Quiocho also works as an instructor for the Museum of Glass’ Hot Shop Heroes program, Pilchuck Glass School, and Hilltop Artists.
Quiocho has received several prestigious scholarships to expand his practice and continue his studies, including the John and Mary Shirley Scholarship in Glass from Pratt Fine Arts Center, an Emerging Artist award from the Museum of Glass, and several scholarships from Hilltop Artists, where he continues to teach today.
Artist Statement
Through glass, I want to explore the ways in which I can preserve the rich histories, folktales and Filipino traditions that have been lost through colonization. I’m inspired by the textures, sights, and lived experiences of diasporic Filipinos and their ancestors, and I want to honor the Manongs who worked in the sugar cane plantations in Hawaii and tilled the land in California, the Alaskeros who worked in the salmon canneries in Alaska and Washington, and the motherland from which they came from.
Glass provides the opportunity to create a revitalized, visual language that speaks to this cultural iconography, and through this, breathe new life into the folktales and stories behind them. Creating these objects affirms my connection to this history, allows me to explore and understand the symbolism behind them, and ignites the spark that fuels my curiosity in learning more about Filipino culture and history.
This deep exploration has given me a new vision for my craft, and has brought me greater purpose as an artist and craftsperson. The journey of reconnecting with my cultural heritage has allowed me to shift my personal narrative as a glassblower, and has highlighted the ways in which I possess the same traits as those who came before me.
Austin Stern
Visiting Artist
Austin Stern
April 24-28, 2023
Austin Stern has been blowing glass since the age of 14, as a high school student in Palo Alto, California. After earning a degree in glassblowing from Emporia State University in Kansas, Stern moved to Seattle to develop his own artistic practice in the vibrant glassblowing community of the Pacific Northwest. Stern exhibits his work nationally and internationally, and has been a resident artist and instructor in the United States, Thailand, and Sweden.
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“I am inspired by the bright and highly saturated colors found in the toys and cartoons of my childhood, and the patterns found in both nature and the world of fashion. My current work explores interpersonal relationships, and mental health. The ways in which we support each other, take care of ourselves, and how we cope with various anxieties and fears are all concepts my work explores through a cheerful lens of brightly colored playful creatures.”
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The ‘Little Monsters’ series is a body of work where cartoon like creatures interact with physical manifestations of their own anxieties. These worries which assail the monsters, gleefully weighing down their minds and bodies, are simultaneously sinister and comical representations of our daily setbacks and stumbling blocks. By approaching this subject matter from a playful and saccharine perspective, the viewer is invited to find the humor in the small battles we fight daily to find positivity, peace, and happiness.
Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen & Jason Johnsen
Visiting Artists
Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen & Jason Johnsen
March 13-18, 2023
Visiting Artist Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen has often been inspired by the natural world, finding her creative spark through traveling, observing animals, and exploring the outdoors.
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Raised in Milford, Ohio, Karen Willenbrink-Johnsen and her naturalist father spent many a day on forays through the woods. As a landscaper, the elder Willenbrink taught his daughter about trees, birds, fossils, and native peoples. She says: “I’m constantly inspired, revitalized and awed by the power of nature.” A self-described all-American girl, the artist grew up with her twin sister, older brother, younger brother, and parents who loved to camp and hike. In their childhood home, nature and happiness was celebrated, resulting in Willenbrink-Johnsen’s palpable passion for life.
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Soon after receiving a BFA in sculpture from Ohio University, glass became a driving force in Willenbrink-Johnsen’s life. The artist spent several years honing her skills in the Catskill Mountains region of New York. She subsequently embarked on a 16-year stint working with glass artist William Morris, who taught Willenbrink-Johnsen to follow her vision and let the enthusiasm of her spirit guide her ideas.
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Like Morris, Willenbrink-Johnsen creates sculpture not only by blowing, but by hot sculpting. Components are hot formed or lampworked ahead of time and held in a garage to keep them warm while a base is being formed. Once the base is ready, the painstaking process of joining the elements to the base begins. Stress is introduced each time a new component is added, and the weight of the piece increases. A delicate balance of time and temperature is required for a sculpture to reach successful completion.
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Willenbrink-Johnsen’s team includes husband Jasen Johnsen, whom she met at Pilchuck and married in 2001. Jasen served as the head studio technician at Pilchuck Glass School for nearly 10 years and worked as teaching assistant for Pino Signoretto and Hank Murta Adams before beginning to co-teach classes with Karen.
As bird watchers, the Willenbrink-Johnsens observe every feather, talon, and branch presented in their work and invite viewers to enjoy their sculpture with the same attention to detail. Combining unmatched technical mastery with a profound love for their medium, nature, and each other, the artists explore new territory through not only birds forms, but complex treatments of their environs.
Jennifer Caldwell & Jason Chakravarty
Visiting Artists
Jennifer Caldwell & Jason Chakravarty
August 8 - 13, 2022
We are excited to announce a visiting artist residency with glassblowing artists Jennifer Caldwell and Jason Chakravarty. They create narrative-driven glass sculptures referencing nature, the sea, animals, plants and bee life. Their art reflects the team's humor, whimsy and imagination, balanced in design and beauty.
In their collaborations, Caldwell includes sculptural components using borosilicate glass and a torch while Chakravarty combines blown and sculpted glass forms with cast components.
Jennifer Caldwell began working with glass in 2000 while living in Hawaii. Working in a glass gallery and studio, she adapted flameworking techniques to re-create regional sea life. She gained additional training with an Italian master in Murano and in workshops at Pilchuck Glass School, Corning Museum of Glass, and Pratt Center for the Arts. She has maintained a full-time glass studio practice for nearly 20 years.
Jason Chakravarty began incorporating neon glass into his sculpture in 1998 while attending Arizona State University. In 2002, he began illuminating blown glass forms and kiln-cast glass while attending graduate school at California State University, Fullerton. He has studied at Pilchuck Glass School, Pittsburgh Glass Center, Penland School of Crafts, and University of California, San Diego.
You are invited to watch this creative duo up close and personal from our public viewing areas. August 8-13, 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. No reservations required. No fees charged.